Reading Ads Socially Book

"Reading Ads Socially" argues that advertisements are an ideal site for observing how the logic of the commodity form expresses itself culturally and socially. The aim is to produce a study of visual ideology which will move students to consider the deep ideological structure of ads. Though our media pundits talk endlessly about ads, media criticism of ads is usually specious and beside the point. The fixation on whether ads are deceptive or subliminal diverts us from the real material and ideological impact of ads in modern society. The material impact of ads lies in producing and reproducing a currency of sign values that can be joined to commodities; ideologically the sheer number of ads that we process numbs us into an acceptance of the social logic imposed by the framework of the commodity form. It is here that mystification takes place, it is here that we are encouraged to embrace reified social logic as if it were natural. Robert Goldman examines how advertisements frame meanings, and how these frames help to organize the ways we see the world. By dissecting these frames advertisements can be made to locate the meaning of hegemony in relation to commodity culture.Read More